THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 39 



His life was devoted to the improvement of the national taste 



in rural art, 

 an office for which his genius and the natural beauty amidst 

 which he lived had fully endowed him. 

 His success was as great as his genius, and for the death of few 



public men, 

 was public grief ever more sincere. 

 When these grounds were proposed, he was at once 

 called to design them ; 

 but before they were completed he perished in the wreck of the 

 steamer Henry Clay. 

 His mind was singularly just, penetrating, and original. 

 His manners were calm, reserved, and courteous. 

 His personal memory 

 belongs to the friends who loved him ; 

 his fame to the country which honored and lan^nts him. 



Inscription upon the Southern Front : 



♦' The taste of an individual, 

 as well as that of a nation, will be in direct proportion to the 

 profounci sensibility 

 with which he perceives the beautiful in natural scenery." 



" Open wide, therefore, 



the doors of your libraries and picture galleries, 



all ye true republicans ! 



Baild halls where knowledge shall be freely diflFused among men, 



and not shut up within the narrow walls of 



narrower institutions. 



Plant spacious parks in your cities, 



and unclose their gates as wide as the gates of morning to the 



whole people." 



[Downing^ s Rural Essay*. 



Upon the Eastern Front is inscribed : 



" Weep no more, 

 For Lycidus your sorrow is not dead. 

 Sunk though he be beneath the wat'ry floor, 

 So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 

 And yet anon repairs his drooping head. 

 And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 

 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky ; 

 So Lycidus sunk low, but mounted high 

 Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves." 



Upon the Western Front is this Inscription: 



I climb the hill from end to end. 

 Of all the landscape underneath 

 I find no place that does not breathe 



Some gracious memory of my friend. 



